Final Remarks 201
course of a sermon on hellfire, pauses ever so slightly to wink
mischievously, as it were, at his fellow sophisticates by men-
tioning that there are some who "take a more merciful view of
this fire, in a way worthier of the one who punishes," and then
promptly resumes his dire hellfire-and-brimstone admoni-
tions to all those lesser intellects in the room (Oration 40.36).
It may offend against our egalitarian principles today, but it
was commonly assumed among the very educated of those
times that the better part of humanity was something of a hap-
less rabble who could be made to behave responsibly only by
the most terrifying coercions of their imaginations. Belief in
universal salvation may have been far more widespread in the
first four or five centuries of Christian history than it was in all
the centuries that followed; but it was never, as a rule, encour-
aged in any general way by those in authority in the church.
Perhaps there was some wisdom in this. I am a late mod-
ern man, and cannot conquer my sense that one has to give
everyone the same information if one is to be fair (and I want
us all to be fair with one another). But this may be foolish of
me. Maybe there are a great many among us who can be con-
vinced to be good only through the threat of endless torture
at the hands of an indefatigably vindictive God. Even so much
as hint that the "purifying flames" of the Age to come will at
the last be extinguished, and perhaps a good number of us will
begin to think like the mafioso who refuses to turn state's evi-
dence because he is sure that he can "do the time." Bravado
is, after all, the chief virtue of the incorrigibly stupid. I hope
that this is not really the case, but maybe I am being some-
what quixotic; my actual experiences provide me with at best
ambiguous evidence in the matter. Still, I am not sufficiently
phlegmatic to pull off the charade. I cannot prevaricate about
something that strikes me as so very clear in its moral signifi-